While the large majority of the Earth's surface is composed of water, potable/drinkable water remains a scarce resource in many areas. Sources of fresh water are limited, primarily, to the collection and purification of rainwater and/or water from natural freshwater sources, such as lakes, rivers, underground reservoirs/aquifers, etc. Technological advances have also enabled saltwater from oceans and other high-salinity bodies to be purified through a desalninifaction process; however such processes are costly and time-consuming, requiring specialized equipment and a significant energy expenditure, while producing a relatively low yield of usable fresh water. Technological advances have also enabled reclamation and/or purification of used water, but the amount of usable water recovered through these methods is also fairly limited. Absent the collection of groundwater and rainwater, and the treatment of wastewater, efforts to combat the scarcity of water have primarily been limited to conservation measures.
The Earth's atmosphere contains a significant amount of water, in the form of vapor (e.g., humidity). While condenser devices and similar types of equipment (generically termed “atmospheric water generation devices” herein), can be used to remove this humidity from the atmosphere and covert the removed water vapor to liquid water, such devices are not usable on an industrial scale to produce large quantities of water. This is due, in part, to the fact that water, when in a vapor state, occupies a larger volume than when in liquid or solid states. As such, a very large volume of air must be processed using an atmospheric water generation device to obtain a relatively small quantity of liquid water. Additionally, multiple atmospheric water generation devices cannot be effectively operated within close proximity of one another, because the devices would process the same body of air, resulting in only a minimal increase in the yield of liquid water. Attempts to provide an increased supply of air to atmospheric water generation devices typically consume an impractical quantity of energy due to the large volume of air required to obtain a small volume of liquid water, causing industrial use of atmospheric water generation devices to be non-economical.